Here at Red Bird, we use a combination of academic tutoring and confidence coaching. In this post, Red Bird’s owner, Sue, explains what coaching is and how our tutors use coaching techniques to help learners succeed.
Why Coaching?
Coaching is such a positive experience! It deals with the person you are now – the whole package – and gets you looking forward into the future. It’s like the saying ‘Do something today your future self will thank you for’.
Coaching’s all about you with your best interests at heart. Everyone is unique and coaching helps you to find your own way.
What happens in Coaching?
Coaching takes you on a journey to make the most of your life. It focuses on you and your aspirations and a coach helps you to get there through a combination of questioning, actions, accountability and reassurance.
It’s like having a best buddy in your corner who wants the very best of you, but someone isn’t personally entwined in your life.
So how does that fit with Red Bird?
We are all teachers and know the pressure on a school to do well. Results matter and it’s hard to work with thirty-ish individuals in class to set their own targets.
But at Red Bird, our tutors have the capacity to work with individuals to ascertain how they learn best, help them to set their own actions and talk to them about what is best for them.
Our tutors are dedicated to this and the results can be incredible.
Action Sheets
At the end of a session, each learner is given an Action Sheet. The sheet invites them to think about what is best for them to act upon during the week. This can be hard at first, but they soon get the idea.
The Action Sheet serves two purposes.
Firstly, the onus is on the student to think about their education as their journey. It suggests at the end of the day, it is up to them.
Secondly, the students start to realise that they have control over their world. Red Bird is not just another place where they are told what to do.
At the bottom of the sheet, the phrase ‘Action Cures Fear’ encourages self-confidence and belief.
Self-Confidence
As soon as pupils arrive at the centre or online, staff warmly greet them and a relationship of positivity is built up between the tutor and student. They are made to feel welcome and are genuinely cared for and wished the very best.
At the start of each session, we use centering/mindfulness to make the students and tutors feel grounded and ready to learn. We help learners regularly envision their future in a positive way to give them something to aim for after the test/exam that they are heading towards.
Our tutors talk to learners about how they may learn best and how this fits with different revision techniques. They may also talk to them about which careers this may lead them towards.
Tutors allow time for brains to be engaged in a way that isn’t possible in school. They’re not satisfied with silence or no attempt at an answer. Although this seems painful at the beginning, there’s a magic moment when the answers start flowing and learners start to taken ownership of their own success!
This combination of coaching and academic tutoring allows for a child to feel great about themselves and therefore be in a much better position to learn. It’s what makes us unique 🙂
Sue
Owner of Red Bird Tutoring
Sue launched Red Bird Tutoring in 2018, combining her 20+ years experience as a teacher and school leader with her interest in coaching.
Since its launch, Red Bird has helped hundreds of learners achieve success!
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